


Helpless

by StainedGlassDreams



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Brainwashing, Captain America: Civil War, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 08:10:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6746200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StainedGlassDreams/pseuds/StainedGlassDreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The real horror, for Bucky, isn't that it's happened. But that it's happening again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't seen the film yet, but going off released film clips, info, and speculation.  
> As always, Thank You so much for reading :)

(Wake up, wake up.)

There's nothing more fearful than this.

Fight, punch, kick, subdue.

He's forgotten how much. But he knows, deep down, there isn't anything more frightening. Can't be.

Flip, defend, subdue.

(Wake up, snap out of it.)

Hell, he figures, is made up of an endless episode of this. Watching yourself do something while you can do nothing.

Shoot, subdue.

Yelling & scratching at a coffin you can't get out of, but can hear and see everything from.

A sonic high frequency pitch came out from nowhere.

The ringing in his ears cleared his head briefly, the flash of light bringing it all back into focus as instinct took over.

He grabbed the gun, the gauntlet stronger than anticipated.

(You have control, you have some form of control)

He punched with his right fist.

Restraint enough to bring his mind to an exhaustion point.

Two more. The blond formidable, army trained.

(No)

The second one fights like him. Can't remember how he knows this, can't remember why he knows her moves.  
Execution flawless as she tries to subdue enough to let the blonde finish.

Defend, defend, flip.

(Not again, God, not again)

Familiarity scraping the surface as she tries to take him out, flipping her onto the table.

Choke.

(WAKE UP)

He knows her, the anger substituting for recognition, can feel it as she touches him gently, ignoring the pressure he can't fucking wake up from, trying to touch the part of him that's yelling-

"You could at least recognize me."

(Natali-)

Feels a kick as he snaps back to reality, still shaken from how close he was.

Fast, different fighting style. Subdue, attack.

(Try harder-)

Went up the stairs, the man there once again.  
Fight, fight, attack, take down.

The pitch gave him back some control, minimal as it was.  
Took him down after a while, continuing his way up.

Another man, leather jacket, his eyes looking confused.

(No, no, no, please God no)

No.

Fought him-

(STOP)

-the frustration translating into fury, as the man refused to hit.  
Kick, punch, kick

(Dammit, wake UP)

The man took his hand as Bucky tried to punch him, pushing back before he pushed him into the elevator.  
"Bucky-"

The name created a link, but he didn't have the strength to use it, brushing him off as he continued to the roof.

Unplugged it, just as Zemo had said.

There really isn't anything more terrifying than this. There isn't anything, because he thought this would actually never happen again. Safe from it all.

(Not again. Please.)

Started it up, coordinates put away.

The door to the roof flew open, Steve bolting out of it.

Doesn't matter, you're in the air.

(Help.)

The helicopter jerks to the side, as he sees him attempting to take it down.

(Steve.)  
Hope flickering somewhere as he tried to fight again.

The console continued to beep rapidly as the man tried to hold onto it, grasping the building as it creaked down.

(Stop, wake up, it's over-)

Failure from the last time he saw him boiling over, he wasn't going to-

(No.)

-fail-

(STOP, NO.)

-again.

His mind screamed as he jerked the stick to the side, crashing it into the building & Steve.

(Help.)

Spinning, back in control but unable to control it.

(Help.)

Everything goes black.


	2. Chapter 2

Coming out of it...it's the closest he thinks he'll ever get to seeing two realities intersect.

It's a strange mixture of what being drunk is, and vertigo.  
Like you're seeing everything that happened in a colored blur that slowly comes into view. & you hate every damn moment.

He'd been cohesive before but he was still teetering.  
Slip into either reality & you risk falling back in.  
Was aware of his arm being in a metal vice. Couldn't remember how he got here.

Heard a voice, feet shuffling into the room before stopping in front of him.  
Tries to move himself up, barely can. Mentally & physically exhausted.  
Keeps saying "help" quietly between breaths. It's the last thing he remembers thinking. Doesn't even know he's saying it.

Looks up to see Steve & stops.  
The colored blur of images coming back in a slow flood as he remembers everything.  
Escaping, taking down 2 girls (he knew one of them, the name nearly on his tongue), Stark, T'Challa and Steve. Again.  
...Remembers the helicopter & guilt comes rushing over him as he looks down, hearing Steve talk to Wilson.  
Again. Fuck, again. Everything he hid in Romania, everything he tried to erase, and he still couldn't fight it.

"Buck." Steve's voice called, a little louder.  
He looked up, expecting everything.  
"Do you remember me?"  
Anyone can say anything. 'Yes', too easy an answer, feeling Wilson's eyes burning through him to see if he was lying. Thinks of a way to say it before a memory comes out of nowhere.  
"Your Mom's name was Sarah." He says, feeling a brief smile in the fatigue as he remembers. "You used to wear newspapers in your shoes."

"Don't tell Mom." He said, stuffing the sports section in. "She's already working more than she should."  
Watched as Steve did it, trying to keep the cold out from the growing hole at the bottom of his sole.  
"That cough of hers..."  
Bucky gripped his shoulder, Steve's face in worry again. "I won't tell her. Promise." Pushed him lightly. "You have to let me buy you new shoes though."  
"You need that money, Buck."  
"Yeah, to buy you some new shoes so I don't have to feel like I'm lying to the President when I look at your Mom."

He didn't tell anyone else. He was the only one who'd know that, and it was all he had, the other memories too far a blur at the moment as the facility was still burning in his mind.

Steve smiled as he said it, knowing what it meant.  
Wilson still looked precarious and honestly, he would be too.  
But it's all he had. And it was his. Which was worth more than the world right now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve's POV of the earlier chapters; Thank You so much for reading :')

If you go back, memory is everything.

Stared at Bucky as he remained unconscious in the other room, slumped beside the metal vice Steve sickeningly had to put him in, still unsure of what would happen when he did wake up.  
...The taste of doing it still in the back of his throat.

Memory dictates your choices. Your logic.  
Your self.  
And for as long as he could remember, Bucky had never let him down.

Bucky's breathing was regulated now, better from the uneven breaths he was taking as Sam helped get them both out, muttering in Russian.

Not as kids. Not as adults.  
He resisted the urge to clench his fists. Not even under HYDRA's damn control, falling to save him. Defying everything.

And yet, here they were, and Steve was once again the one who failed him.  
The one who let him fall. The one who told him to surrender to Rhodes. The one who let Zemo into a room with him.  
The one who trusted a man no one really knew to "psychologically analyze" Bucky, the trap so painfully obvious looking back.  
Another failure for everything Bucky had done for him. 

"Coast is clear." Sam said, walking back in the room after checking outside to make sure they didn't have any tails coming back from the facility.  
They both looked on in silence, contemplating what the hell had just happened in the past hour.  
"How the hell did Zemo get past Ross?"  
Steve shook his head. "I don't know. But he pulled enough strings to get in." The restraint finally collapsing as he clenched his fists in frustration. "I don't know how long he has been."

He traced it all back. Rumlow was a mercenary for hire, he could have easily set-up the IFID attack in Lagos.  
Stopped. There would have been no way to preempt Wanda's power.  
He staged the UN explosion, that much was for sure. Framed it on Bucky and did whatever he did to send Bucky back into whatever horrors HYDRA worked on him.  
Guilt and frustration again bubbling in his system as he remembers Austria. Needed to step out.  
"I'm gonna look for Wanda and Barton." Looked at Bucky one more time, "keep an eye on him."  
"Yeah."

He left, trying not to punch something.

Steve stood outside, trying to control his anger.  
They had him again. Whatever Zemo had done....  
Thought back to just earlier this morning, when Steve found Bucky in his apartment, notebooks with memories in them and the look in his eyes.  
Like Bucky was afraid to even look at him, wanting to run but rooted to the ground.  
Remembered the look at the facility. Like the helicarriers. Fear wrapped in confusion, wrapped in anger.

Asked him to trust him.

And now... Now it was a betting game whether whatever Zemo had done had permanent effects.

Asked him to trust him.

"Hey Cap!" Sam called out.

Wouldn't blame him if he never did again.  
If Zemo's experimentation wasn't permanent. Too many ifs.

Steve came into the room, Bucky looking weak, muttering "Help" in between breaths before he looked up at Steve, like he was his last hope.  
"This would have been a lot easier a week ago."  
Steve paused. "If we call Tony-"  
"Nah, he won't believe us."  
"Even if he did-"  
Sam's face turned sterner. "Who know if the Accords will let him help?" anger in his words, Tony so imbued with the document that he tuned everything else, out. Why would he listen to them if they said the ATCU was infiltrated. Whether by HYDRA or another organization, they weren't even sure.  
Couldn't even call Natasha.  
"We're on our own.".  
"Maybe not. ...I know a guy." Sam replied.

Bucky was looking down at the floor, his breathing slightly uneven.

"How do we know he isn't the same?" Sam asked, back still turned.  
Steve looked at him. He looked like hell and back. Confusion from what happened still in the back of his mind but Austria wouldn't leave his head.  
"We don't. We just have to try." Steve began to walk toward him as Sam walked in front, covering exits. "Buck."  
He looked up at Steve, guilt and shame marked on his face.  
"Do you remember me?"  
Bucky stayed silent for a moment, looking at Steve. A brief and smile slowly came on his face, fighting the fatigue. "Your Mom's name was Sarah. You used to wear newspapers in your shoes."  
He had forgotten about that. He asked Bucky to promise not to tell his Mom, the shoes being his last pair.  
She'd caught a cough she insisted was nothing, and he didn't want her working any more than she already was.  
The hole being on the underside of his shoe, stuffed with the sports section from the paper each morning.  
There was no way anyone else could have known about that.

A small smile appeared on Steve's face.  
He trusted him.

**Author's Note:**

> Partially inspired by Sebastian Stan's comments on Bucky http://sebuckstianstan.tumblr.com/post/143760368395/petition-for-people-to-stop-asking-sebastian-stan


End file.
